


Endinning

by Mistress_of_Universes



Series: Anomalous Materials [2]
Category: InterWorld Series - Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves, Multi-Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Anomaly- Freeform, Beginnings, Endings, Gen, Multiverse, Stream of Consciousness, void
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistress_of_Universes/pseuds/Mistress_of_Universes
Summary: The multiverse is greatly and wildly disorienting. However, the way that the multiverse interacts with time is even more so. There is no beginning, no end. There are seemingly unlinked stories that do in the end become something much greater.It is because of this that we are able to more greatly understand the occurrence of anomalies. In essence, they are taken into account, just not where they are being examined. Much like an unlinked story, they occur out of order of what the examiner understands to be the universe around them.This is no one's fault. It simply is.-An Excerpt from “Mysteries of the Multiverse: The Argument Between Fate and Freewill”, an essay by EnigmaBibliophile, 347XX-3C62/F4JZ





	1. CPE=e>we#F|uLmkLrrh+3=;*G$u

I suppose that I should call this place “home”.Not that’s it’s actually a physical location but the feeling accompanying this state of being is the same. Kinda.

“You’re back!!” A light, cheerful voice rings out or at least a near approximate. It belongs to the being I’ve decided to call Dottie. She, (they? No, that doesn’t feel at all correct.) SHE flies at me knocking me off my feet and hugs me. Well, it kinda feels like she does, the part of me that still swears up and down that I’m physical and can still do things like feel and hear and talk.

(It’s weird not actually feeling anything. It’s almost lonely in a way.)

“Yes I’m back hello. How have.. sorry, old habit. Ummmmmmm, how long has it been?”

“Ages and ages!” Her arms stop hugging me and fly apart to show me just how long ages and ages was. “But that’s enough of that. What was it like?”

Please no. Don’t ask me that. Why would you ask me that? “What was what like?”

“Being out there, duh.” Damn it. “What was it like to be.. what were you again?”

“Physical. I had a physical body. Several forms actually.”

“Yeah, physical! What was that like?”

Painful. And euphoric. But mainly painful. “It was... interesting, I guess. Sad at times and.. limiting, I suppose, but also very, freeing. I don’t know; it’s hard to explain. There was a lot of things that I can’t really explain to you. You’d have to experience it yourself to understand.”

After all, how can you explain to someone what it is to be lonely? hopeless? loved? How can you describe sensation to something that never has and never will feel? Even our discussion isn’t actually in the form of words. It’s almost more of an echo of meaning and emotion. A passing thought perhaps is the closest I could get to describing what it is in a physical manner but even that is limiting it too much.

What is pain to one that doesn’t have a form with which to feel it? What is loneliness to a thought that never can be alone? I’d never imagined how different life was for the creatures that lived in the material world. I didn’t realize how much they had.

(I didn’t realize how much it would hurt to come back.)

Dottie “looks” at me in a confused manner but “goes off” to tell everyone else of my return. They probably already know as we are all intrinsically connected to each other (I even practically still feel her presence despite her seeming movement away from me) but Dottie’s the youngest so we don’t stop her from having her fun. None of the rest “talk” to me until she’s told them about my return.

And boy howdy, when they do talk.

“Welcome back!” “What was it..” “You’re ba..” “Did you meet a..” “How did..” “Do you want..” “Let me near you...”

It was like a cacophony of sound and continually being hugged by any number of family members, about half of which I didn’t particularly want physical contact from at any given time.

You see, having been a human or a monster or an SCP or a whatever I was at any given point, it’s hard not to imagine each of them as having a physical body and acting in a physical manner. Hell, I practically translate our speech into actual words. And while I know that that’s not actually how it works for us, I can’t stop the part of me that preferred being physical from doing what it wants.

As a result, when one of the older beings I now call Uncle Todd presences in a manner that that part manifests as him grabbing me for a hug in a manner that I am not ok with, I withdraw from him (and several others) and everyone freaks out.

(Then again, I also started to do our equivalent of shrieking which has the same effect in the majority of the multiverse so...)

Everyone does the equivalent of shutting up and taking several steps back before breaking back into a cacophony of sound.

I didn’t know it was possible to sensory overload when you don’t actually have senses. The More You Know!

Someone, I think it was the one I plan on calling Karen, manages to calm everyone down and they all kinda leave me to resettle into the collective. They’re all still on the edge of my ??? consciousness, I guess? but it’s not quite like they’re all up on me at once. More like I’m in a crowd at a con. Except I can’t even go to any panels or signings.


	2. qX9Kc)6e#F80[EMmKBt<r@:0m$0tF9jLrr=Ct@8CHRWzQjRnlazIN::eNL

I managed to do the seemingly impossible. I had gotten away and was alone. Like, almost physically alone. It “felt” like the time I spent in the void, when I was able to just lay in the nothingness and not have to deal with anyone or anything. I could barely even feel the ever present existence of the rest of the collective.

  


It had definitely been too long since I’d been able to have any time alone. In comparison to the solitude of physicality, life here was suffocating. Even when I wasn’t being “comforted” by everyone, I was still in direct contact with them.

They were still there but somehow I had separated that part of my conscious from the part I was currently focusing on, I guess is the best way to put it.

  


It’s the closest I’ve come to a physical existence since I came back. And it doesn’t satisfy most of the requirements at all.

But at least it’s a bit of true privacy. A boat out on the ocean, far from everything, not having to listen to anyone’s messages, just bobbing along.

“What’s a boat?”

Damn it.

“Hellooo? What’s a boat?”

“Dottie, what are you doing?” I groan. I finally manage to be alone with just my thoughts and existence only to be interrupted by someone that doesn’t understand personal space. Probably cause she’s never had any to begin with. “Better question: why are you doing this?”

“Curious. What’s a boat?”

If I thought it was hard trying to explain what I went through to her... Well. Here goes. “It’s a physical thing that carries other physical things on top of another physical thing predominantly comprised of hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are bonded as molecules.”

“............What?”

Damn it.

  


I’m not even certain that it’s literally possible to send memories to someone else but it’s really hard to explain 3D objects to a 1D sentience that can’t even wrap their head around emotion. Guess it’s time to find out. I take some of the memories of the outside of Jericho, from before it was destroyed, and of River’s dog-boat and try to think them at Dottie.

“Can you see these?”

  
  
  


Dottie doesn’t respond for a good several moments. I don’t know what that means. Could mean that it actually worked. Could mean I just broke a fundamental connection with the universe and now have to try and avoid being killed by whoever took my job when I finally escaped.

(Can you even be killed when you’re a 1D sentience? How would they go about that? Can normal 3D beings be transformed into 1D? Could a MDLF kill me? Hell, how would they even find me? I’m basically just a dot in infinite space at this point.)

“Wow.” So it DID work. Huh.

“What do ya think Dottie?”

  


“It’s so.... SO!! Like it just! And!!”

“Yup. Basically.” I have a vague idea of what she’s trying to tell me. No matter what though, it’s very excited.

Hey, it wasn’t even like The Giver. Either that or it didn’t actually transfer correctly cause she can’t actually conceive of a physical realm.

“I’m gonna go tell everyone about boats!!”

Well, there are two ways this could go. Either she tells everyone and they are left very confused or she actually manages to show everyone about boats. And then left confused.

Fuck it. “Sure. You go do that.”

This will almost definitely backfire but that’s a problem for later me. Current me wants to go back to trying to simulate aloneness.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Just a boat on the ocean.

Maybe a little less alone that before.

  
  



	3. $+m<Xffz]GztAQ+lKB&=/W2eM%/4Dm9jPDgZ|v2!m$C2pEnnXPH<f,eGlTztJFXiOggZk>;NC

Learning about boats seems to have been a crucial point in Dottie’s life. I just wish she’d shut up about them sometimes since I, apparently, am still the only other entity here that knows about them. And I’m not certain if that is a good or bad thing.

It’s not just the fact that she now talks incessantly about things she’s only ever seen? twice in sent memories. It’s mainly the fact that she has basically taken to following me wherever I go.

Do I need to talk to someone else about something? Well, be ready for Dottie to chime in cause she’s practically my shadow now.

Have a personal problem that needs to be dealt with? Dottie’s here to help whether you want her to be or not.

Trying to have some time alone to collect your thoughts and deal with the growing realization that the emotions you feel here are mostly just hollow memories of what you used to feel, like a emotion flavored La Croix? You have like a minute before Dottie starts screaming at you about boats.

  
  
  


I love the child.

I’m going to kill the child.

  
  
  
  


I’ve had siblings before but this is the first time I’ve actually considered murdering them. And I’m not even certain how I’d actually go about it. Yes, members of the collective die eventually but I’ve never actually known how.

The multiverse is weird.

  
  


I can't take it anymore. I turn around and look pointedly at her. "Why are you following me? Don't you have something, Anything else to do?!"

She kinda just looks back at me with confusion and a smile. "I wannaknow more!"

"More about what?"

"More about boats! And about other stuff! Like those things that would go 'caw!' on the boat!" It's really unsettling to "hear" her attempt at crowing, obviously imitating a bird. For one thing, it's more like being hit in the face with a vine. A blurry pictured vine with really corrupted audio. For another, her "voice" disappears entirely when she says it and is just replaced by this almost image of a bird with inverted colors and a sound mimicking horrorterrors.

I guess that the only way she can talk about things I send her through memories is by playing the memories back at me. (I learned pretty quickly to tune her out whenever she started talking to me because there's only so much a memory of a boat can leave you with to discuss so I'd never noticed it before.) Except she doesn't have the knowledge to keep them from corrupting. If emotions were a La Croix, back-sent replayed memories are like looking at impressionistic paintings while on an acid trip as a VCR kills a VHS tape next to a computer playing ear rape in the background.

  
  
  


"Ok Dottie. Here's the deal. I will tell you about things in the material universe as long as you never try to talk to me about them ever again, ok? At least, not until the playback stops causing me literal pain. That a deal?"

"Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!"

I guess I've resigned myself to this fate now.

"So. Birds."


	4. "qLgO[RT@S51kblL:X_1f,<cQ&*xLy#q44#<1]ZvNL

It's really weird telling Dottie about everything. Or lots of stuff. Not quite EVERYTHING everything. Like, emotions don't pass through memories terribly well and there's a heck of a lot of stuff I barely want to acknowledge happened to me, never mind showing them to someone who barely understands that flowers are a thing. Like the labs. Or the trial. Or Joh'ey. She doesn't need to know about my job. About the wars. About the slaughter.

So instead I show her the sky at sunset. I show her white stars and bubbles. I introduce her to the idea of family, which she actually manages to send back with only the tiniest bit of corruption. It's because she understands family at its fundamentals. It's us. It's the collective. This is her family.

  
  
  


But it's not my family any longer.

  
  
  


I left. I don't even remember why I left, but I did. I was curious and dumb and didn't imagine that the first thing I would experience would be overwhelming fear. I lost any memory of here and the life I had given up to be a physical being and instead adopted a new identity. And, in turn, I ended up adopted by a loving family that actually wanted to help me and supported me through the stress and the pain.

  
  


They gave me a name.

I would be adopted into other families throughout the multiverse but none of them were quite the same. Sure, they supported and took care of me but those families were a lot like the family here. I wanted to leave them after a while and then would.

  
  
  


I don't know.

  
  
  


I want to go  _ home _ .

Like I thought it would've been here but, it's just  _ not _ . And it makes me want to leave again.

  
  


But I don't want to leave Dottie.

It's selfish but I like spending time with her, even if she is a nuisance. She's my little sister and she's too curious for me to leave here again. It would suffocate her.  _ They _ would suffocate her. She deserves to feel emotions and feel sensation and see things and eat food and smell flowers and listen to music.

So I stay for her sake. And I show her a world she's never experienced.

I try to pretend I don't end up crying as my mind triggers itself. I try to ignore the constant lingering panic. I try to avoid thinking about how the lack of sensation is a little too similar to when  _ he _ would do the testing and I

No. I left there. He can’t get me ever again. Especially not like this.

  
  


Now that I think about it, maybe that’s also part of why I stay. I know that if I leave, she’d get hurt. Just like how if I’d let my guard down,  _ he _ would have and did kill my siblings. In front of me.

  
  


I know the collective wouldn’t do that exactly, wouldn’t go to that extreme but I was tortured and watched as my siblings were tortured and killed and that will never go away.

  
  


So instead of leaving like I feel part of myself screaming to do, I stay here and tell Dottie about how beautiful things were.

  
  
  


(and maybe, just maybe, one of these days she’ll want to leave and i can bring her home with me. and she can actually find out how beautiful things can be.)


	5. tiH<R[RTLR3tIQqmxoIJ%*T[;%X%hQQn82=Cf>/pmUu+$PKmv,gZD?~*fVo4|a9j

“Why do you call me Dottie?”

“It’s a name. Something that physical beings use to identify each other.”

“Why?”

“They don’t know everyone.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Dottie, concepts. And yes. I have a name.”

“What is it?”

“Helvetica.”

“Did you choose it yourself?”

“It was given to me by someone else, someone I trusted and loved. Like how I gave you a name.”

“Oh.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“How did they know what to call you?”

“At first, they didn’t which is why they gave me the name. Once they had done that, others could ask me and I would tell them, like I did just now.”

  
  
  
  


“So why Dottie?”

“What?” Time to start panicking.

“Why did you decide to call me Dottie?”

“It felt... right. I don’t know. Do you not like it? I have others you could try.”

  
  
  
  


“I like it.”

Thank goodness.


	6. zD52/WH[r%c6hQQnfdA

I’ve overheard the rest of them talking. They’re worried that I’m not being a good influence on Dottie. She’s been spending a lot more time with me than anyone else. She talks about otherworldly things they don’t understand. She acts  like me weird. No one else has ever come back from the material universe. No one else has brought back memories of a physical universe and then given them directly to someone else. It has to be hurting her, changing her.

I’m worried about her too but for different reasons. For one, she’s been “feeling” more physical than the others are to me. Not only her presence but also the way she replays memories to me have been more, clear. Less like a corrupted vine being played on a broken VHS tape and more like a staticky La Croix written onto a CD. I’m worried that she might try to go physical without anyone to help her adjust. That she’ll end up somewhere like I was in and I won’t be able to help her. That I’ll be forced out of the collective and have to leave her behind. That she’ll try to follow after me and I won’t ever find her again. Or worse, that I am stuck here watching her suffocate under the collective’s beliefs about those that go physical.

(They don’t even have the courtesy to pretend that I can’t hear them talking about me. About what an atrocity I’ve been since I came back. How they can’t understand the way I act. They never faced the torture, don’t understand my terror, and can’t figure out why I’m still here. They want me to leave. And they don’t get that I want to leave too but can’t leave Dottie behind.

  
  


I won’t leave Dottie behind.)

  
  


“Helvetica—“ She’s taken to calling me by my name for some reason. “What was it like?”

  
  
  
  


I still don’t have a good answer for her.  The problem is I think I know why she’s bringing it up again.

  
  


“It was different. Very different. More like what I’ve shown you but even more than that.”

“Then why did you stop if it was so good?”

  
  
  


“I don’t know.”

And it’s the truth. Or at least it is now.

I had hoped that this would be home for me. It was where I came from originally. It was the complete opposite of the isolation I had basically grown up inside of.

  
  
  
  


But it wasn’t.

  
  
  


“Then why don’t you go back?”

  
  
  
  
  
  


Because I’m terrified of losing the last good thing I have in my life.

Because I can’t leave you here alone to try and defend yourself from their lack of understanding.

Because I’m scared. Downright petrified of what will happen if I do again.

Because, because, because, because...

  
  
  
  
  
  


Because I don’t want to go out there and be alone again.

  
  
  


“I don’t know. Just don’t feel like it I guess.”

  
  
  
  


I wish I had my violin. Or any music to be honest. Fuck, I’d be glad to listen to Justin Beiber as long as it meant I didn’t have to deal with the pain of being here.

  
  
  
  
  


Dottie feels, uncertain? anxious? “oh.”

  
  


“What’s on your mind?”

  
  
  


“it’s nothing i guess.”

“You don’t feel you belong here, don’t you?” She looks up with a start. “That you want to go physical.”

  
  


“yeah”

Had a feeling.


	7. =7X<dHA

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Normally, going physical requires conversations with the “council”. I was a young rebel it would seem and just ripped myself and my consciousness from the collective.

Which means there’s basically a snowball’s chance in hell of me going before the council and them letting both Dottie and I go.

  
  


Fuckity-do-da.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. V2hhdCBhbSBJIGV2ZW4gZG9pbmc/

  
  


This is a terrible idea.

  
  


I don’t even remember how I did it the first time. Never mind with someone else that has never done something like this at all before.

  
  
  


To get back here, I just Walked. And I think I might be able to do something like it to get out. The problem is that if I do, I can only do it once. There’s no telling where I would end up after I do it and due to the way coordinates don’t really work here, the likelihood of my getting back here are practically zero.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Dottie is growing restless.

  
  


She’s starting to become a danger to herself.

She wants soooooooo much to be physical and experience things that I feel her consciousness pulling against the rest of the collective.

The biggest problem is that when I did it the first time, it was probably a lot like what Dottie’s doing now, and I lost any memory I’d had of before. I woke up somewhere not only completely unfamiliar but with a destroyed mental state and severe amnesia. I was little more than a doll able to be programmed to anyone’s whims. Dottie would be wrecked if that happened to her. Heaven knows I was. am. Can’t pretend that it doesn’t still destroy me.

  
  
  
  


I’m not even certain if Dottie can Walk. Or even more importantly, how I would describe Walking to her. It’s somewhat natural to do but far harder with no knowledge of what you are trying to do. In a place where space-time doesn’t cooperate.

  
  
  
  
  
  


I’m scared.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I’m going to have to try though. I’ll have to explain the situation to Dottie and try my best to prepare her.

It’s all I can do at this point.


	9. T2suIExldCdzIGp1c3QgZ2V0IHRoaXMgb3ZlciB3aXRoLg==

“... Do you understand?”

She fidgets slightly. I did just basically tell her that we can get her physical and then tore down any chance of that happening. “Yeah!”

“Are you sure? You do realize that this could really hurt you.”

“Yeah, but you’re ok.” Oh, Dottie, you have no fucking clue how not ok I am. Hell, you probably don’t even really understand what it is to be hurt.

“... no. i’m really not dottie. But I’m trying to make sure that you will be.”

“Then it’s gonna be alright!”

I take a deep breath. Maybe it will be. Maybe she’s right.

  
  


“Alright then. Let’s get started then.”

  
  


I try to explain Walking to someone who can barely grasp birds. Try and guess how well it went.

If you guessed debilitating failure, you’d be mostly right. Except with one thing.

She’s a natural at finding the doors to the In-Between.

I think it comes from how we are used to interacting with the collective. Extending your senses to interact with others is nothing new for her (or me now that I think about it). This is just extending your senses to find a high collection of something that feels more like I do. Something that is separate from the collective and yet calls to it.

  
  


Look at me waxing poetic about 3D reality. I really must be missing it.


	10. Chapter 10

I think it might be working.


	11. Chapter 11

We’re out of time.

  
  


I make sure to stay linked to the collective just enough to watch what they are doing and listen to what they are saying about me, even when I’m working with Dottie. And they just appealed to the council to have me exiled.

There’s no way the council will end up turning this appeal down. The only person that might vote to keep me here would be Karen (she’s always hated appeals against an individual brought forth by the community).

  
  


“Dottie!”

“Yeah, Helvetica?”

I start pulling her along towards the door we sensed a few days ago. “We both need to leave right now.”

“But why?”

“There’s no time. We just need to go. Hold onto me and let go of everyone else. I’ll get you out.”

I feel the bonds Dottie was holding break one by one and hear the outrage of the collective. Everyone except Karen. She’s talking directly to me.

“Run. And don’t look back. I’ll keep them busy here.

Best of luck out there.”

But what catches me off guard for a second is that this message is sent along with a memory of a boat. And this isn’t one of mine. It’s completely clear, I can even still taste the salt of the sea.

  
  


“Karen? You...” But it’s too late. She broke the connection herself and took everyone else’s with. I’m all alone except for Dottie.

The door is waiting for us. It’s open and I can already smell the cacophony and hear the colors and feel the scents of the In-Between. Dottie has passed out but I’m not certain if it’s from the exertion or the influx of things that she can’t quite understand yet. No matter; it actually makes this next part slightly easier to do.

I get to the door and then I Walk, pulling her through behind me.


	12. QW5kIHdlIGFyZSBiYWNrISBIYWxsZWx1amFoISE=

I’ve been physical before. I was physical for a very  _ very _ long time before now actually. My body is actually the one that I left the In-Between from: a skeletal monster wearing cargo shorts, a black tank top and a green vest. It feels unbelievably good and simultaneously really fucking bad to be in this form. Good because my mind no longer has to fight the nothingness. Bad, like overwhelmingly bad because everything aches and I’m fairly certain at least seven bones are broken.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

  
  


I wasn’t certain how Dottie would manifest. She’s never been physical before and has no forms to enter. Small pink sphere that somehow found a silk blanket and lace ribbons definitely was not my first guess though.

She’s just floating lightly between my arms that are still circled around her. It is simultaneously adorable and terrifying because I have no idea how I’m going to get her into an actual physical form that can decently interact with the world. Plus she is completely defenseless. Even Blue has better defenses than she does.

Speaking of Blue, I can hear InterWatch agents moving around here.

  
  


(Maybe I should just let myself be captured. Then I can use the library and actually find my real home. But Dottie...

It’s too risky. I don’t know what they’d do to her.)

  
  


I’ve got to keep moving. They are the least of my worries to be honest. There are far worse dangers here. MDLFs can’t be trusted to be benevolent. I’ve seen the tiniest mudluff attack the the most gentle giant unprovoked and eat it in a single sitting.

So I just start to Walk through the In-Between.

  
  
  
  


To be honest, for an individual whose job required them going from universe to universe via traveling through the In-Between and/or the Nowhere-At-All, I really haven’t been in the In-Between like, at all. Sure I’ve gone through it but I’ve never really spent an extensive trip in here where I actually feel the sights and immerse myself in the 27+ dimensional culture. Usually I just go through the Nowhere-At-All, or practically Run through the In-Between when I absolutely have to go through it.

It’s not bad, per say, but it can definitely be much on the senses.

Plus it interacts weirdly with my 3d existence, trying to make it slightly more dimensional. I can already feel the 4d shifting of my legs as I wade through a pond of C maj. and they start to take on properties that they aren’t supposed to. This is a phenomenon that I’ve actually told Interwatch all about and yet they never bothered to see if it happened with others.  Or at least if they did, they never followed up with me on it. Nuisances.

Dottie seems to just be asleep for now. She’s also started to grow heavier in my arms despite not actually being held in them, so how’s that for Weird Dimensional Phenomenon!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


I just realized that I still feel the shared consciousness between Dottie and I.

Huh.

  
  
  


Well, it’s not hurting anything right now so we’re not gonna worry about it right now. Hell, it’s almost better right now to keep having that connection. It’ll let me know what’s going on with her while she’s a small pink 4D+ ball that still doesn’t understand emotion or anything like that.

  
  
  
  
  


Dottie, we really gotta get you figured out.


End file.
